


Falling In Love With Teeth And Coral

by VesperDeRolo



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/F, Lovecraftian, monster kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2019-08-29 07:34:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16739773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VesperDeRolo/pseuds/VesperDeRolo
Summary: The merchant was taught - ever since she was old enough to fear anything - that monsters could walk in daylight, that nightmares could wear the skin of normalcy for a short time before they slip back into the depths below, shedding their masks as night falls again. So, when she was roused awake by a stranger knocking on the doors of her shop, begging for medicine and bandages, she proved herself a fool by answering.Falling in love made her an even greater fool.





	Falling In Love With Teeth And Coral

The merchant was taught - ever since she was old enough to fear anything - that monsters could walk in daylight, that nightmares could wear the skin of normalcy for a short time before they slip back into the depths below, shedding their masks as night falls again. So, when she was roused awake by a stranger knocking on the doors of her shop, begging for medicine and bandages, she proved herself a fool by answering.

It was obvious since their first meeting: the traveller’s damp hair mottled with sea-spray and blood that was anything but red, her sallow skin that seemed translucent under the moon’s harsh glare, her face’s angular structure looking more like an impressionist drawing than human countenance. Many travellers come by the raggedy port town to seek temporary shelter from the raging oceans and sell whatever treasures they found on their adventures- she had assumed that this traveller was no different.

(Who was the greater fool: someone blind to the truth told by their eyes, or someone who understood but still remained curious?)

She invited the traveller inside, and with a towel helped dried her shivering form and dressed up her wounds, all the while ignoring the strange markings on the traveller’s arms. The traveller had then stripped out of her blood-soaked robes, revealing even stranger scars on her torso which told tales of exploits the merchant could never hope to experience and survive. She only saw them for a second as she cleaned away the aftermath of an untold battle, but those vulnerable moments were enough for the merchant to bath her senses in traveller’s scent- the musky brine hinted at time spent at sea, a scent belonging to veteran mariners.

She should be grateful for having a roof on her head and a place to call home in an capricious world like this. She should be thankful that she wasn’t a wayfarer, constantly moving from place to place, facing the threat of death on a daily basis.

“That’s a unique ring you have.”

The comment had left her mouth before she realized she was admiring the exotic jewelry on the traveller’s spindly finger. The ring was a shaped like a claw, and crafted out of a contradictory material that seemed to be soaking in the light while simultaneously having a lustrous sheen to it.

“Take it,” the traveller said, her voice low and accented in a tongue unidentifiable to the merchant. “Your payment.”

Once clothed and bandaged, the traveller hastily shoved the ring into the merchant’s palm. She then left, saying ‘thank you’ with stiff formality, and was gone without any name or introduction.

***

When the merchant encountered the traveller again, she did not ask for her name. When they met again, the sun was already sinking into the inky waters, and the traveller came by asking for materials to fix her ship in exchange for more of the alien jewelry along with gems and pearls of indescribable colors, salvaged from the deep sea. Upon noting how the merchant still wore that claw-ring, given so long ago, the geometry of her face seemed to have soften- something which did not pass the merchant’s notice.

Yes, these jewelry were breathtaking, the merchant admitted. She thought herself above such material gains, yet the merchant found herself feeling like a kid who discovered toys for the first time. A necklace which looked like a string of barnacles coated by a layer of rubies. A bracelet consisting of fish bones and amber and teeth of a sea monster large enough to swallow her whole. A hairpin of petrified corals sprinkled with iridescent flecks, shining like shattered stars in her hair.

Every time the merchant showed liking to any of the jewelry the traveller brought her, the traveller’s milky eyes seemed to sparkle. The merchant thought the look of pleased amusement that danced in those eyes truly did soften the traveller’s gaunt face, dispelling the air of cool disdain that usually hung around the inscrutable woman.

(If only she was a woman.)

The merchant may be a fool, but she wasn’t oblivious.

During one meeting, the merchant was surprised by a pair of hands covering her eyes. She did not scream, for those hands were much too gentle to be those of some thug, barely brushing against her skin as if she were to run away if touched too roughly. With the distraction of her sight gone, there was no way she could miss the sensation of the spindly fingers nor could she miss the scent of musky salt.

She pulled those hands away from her eyes and whirled around to see the traveller standing behind her, their bodies separated only by pieces of cloth. With the traveller’s fingers entangled in hers, the traces of tiny scales on her fingers felt cool to the touch and the almost invisible webbings between each digit became much more identifiable. When the traveller flashed her the rare smile, she had the lethal fangs of a predator.

Anyone smart should be afraid.

The traveller traded many goods, not just with her but with other residents of the port town too. Yet, she was never seen purchasing any food. The merchant had gifted her a meal of salted herring once, and it was turned down, no matter how much she boasted of her culinary skills.

“I’m sure it tastes wonderful, but I can feed myself.”

And so began the series of maddening questions, asked in an endless circle like an infinite ouroboros.  _ Where are you from? Who is your family? Are you searching for something? Why are you so different? What are you hiding? _

No answers were given, but the traveller did replied with a kiss that soon turned into kisses, tastes of fever dreams that only left her hungrier than before.

“It’s not fair,” she had complained, burying her face and frustration in the traveller’s embrace. “You know my story- the sheltered girl, trophy daughter of a mayor who runs a ramshackle port town, stuck in a shabby shop selling goods to passersby. And I know nothing.”

Eventually, she accepted her fate. Just like how she had accepted her position within the town, she had accepted that if the traveller refuse to answer then she would simply receive no answers.

For once, she was happy to have been wrong.

***

When the traveller found her again, the merchant was burning up. A sickness had spread around the town, and like many others she had fallen ill. The traveller was by her side before she could collapse, her skin feeling pleasantly cool against her own, like the soothing touch of melting ice on a hot day.

“It’s not fair how frail you are.”

The traveller murmured as she tucked the merchant into bed, the merchant’s mind ebbing in and out of consciousness in a hazy fog.

“I came by to say goodbye, actually,” the traveller said, “I’m bound to a cycle, and it’s not fair.”

The merchant gazed at the traveller with half-opened eyes, who rambled on as if nobody was listening.

“I won't return, not for another century or so. Before, I could pretend to be human, most days at least. You would assume practice and time makes it easier, but now...”

“Then don’t. Don’t pretend- not with me.”

The traveller jolted, surprised by the groggy response. The comment took all of the merchant’s remaining energy before her eyelids became too heavy. The merchant fell asleep to the traveller’s soft chuckle, listening to the traveller’s smoky voice telling tales like a bedtime story of civilizations too ancient and too overwhelming for her to comprehend, of the traveller’s family who slept below the sea only to awake at the world’s end, of cyclopean structures constructed with non-euclidean geometry that shifted and changed like the moon’s tide. She heard all the explanations that once was previously denied, and lullabies recited in inhuman tongue, notes that no vocal chords on Earth could replicate.

She dreamt she was deep underwater, in a world without light or the need to breathe. She dreamt about wearing a crown of coral, except the corals were gold and coated with a soapy, swamp-colored oil, crafted in a form impossible with human tools. A translucent material reminiscent of seaweed hung from the crown, almost like an otherworldly bridal veil. For a moment, she could imagine herself as some queen, as someone other than a mayor’s daughter, more than a cowardly merchant stuck in a town in the middle of nowhere.

Then she woke, aching, her bedside blank.

The traveller’s voice teased at her ear, the ghostly smile visible in her mind’s eye.

Only the empty night air greeted her.

***

The dreams never left her, though.

Every other night, she dreamt of feather-light caresses by fingers that could only be loosely described as fingers for they seem to stretch on infinitely, reaching and fondling every corner of her body. Her dreams showed a naked form entangling her own, an anatomy with shifting angles and limbs which looked like a child's scribble of a human figure before they learnt what proportion meant. In her sleep, she met the traveller who cast aside the human facade like a snake shedding its skin, transforming into a creature with skin so sheer that her inner organs were visible. The centre of her chest glowed like an angler fish’s light, and the merchant could see the lava-glow flowing through the traveller’s veins with every thump of her eldritch heart.

A wise person would be terrified.

And one night, she was.

Instead of closing her eyes and feeling scaled lips brushing against her own, she saw rows and rows of teeth like poisoned needles sitting inside wide disjointed jaws. Shadows crawled across the once familiar features of someone who used to feel like home, twisting it into a nightmarish parody of a face. She found herself underwater, and above the surface she heard hecklings and cannon shots and saw a ship looming, slowly inching closer to the shore. Then came the chaos: the ship brought to a halt by an unnaturally violent thunderstorm, men dragged underwater by the hungry tides, claws extending and red clouding up her vision.

She woke up, gasping, her mouth tasting of copper and salt.

The next morning news spread around town of a pirate attack that was thwarted by a storm occurring that night, sinking the ship before a raid could occur. Yet, it did not explain some of the corpses which floated ashore, and gossips soon grew of a monster which murdered these men.

Morbid curiosity and a suffocating sense of responsibility pushed her to seek out the corpses. She was grateful that she haven’t yet eaten her breakfast. The stench of blood and rot and feces. The limbs torn barbarically apart, utterly ravaged. The bodies whose faces were gone, replaced by marks of teeth and claw. Worse than all the gore was that she knew exactly what was responsible.

(Who is to be blamed: the creature who gave in to its very nature, or the woman who made the danger return again and again?)

Days later, when she felt a sudden pair of hands covering her eyes, she almost shrieked. When the all too familiar voice muttered in her ears, her stomach churned, the dreaded nausea returning.

“I genuinely did tried to leave, to fulfill my duty. I thought myself above sentimentality, but here I am.”

Her heart could not stop pounding. She swallowed, noting how her reaction was new; she had not recalled meeting the traveller and being afraid of her before.

“So?” she asked, trying to seem indifferent.

“It’s not fair how humans die like mayflies, how someone with you is stuck so  _ hungry _ .”

Hungry- the word stung like an accusation, even if it was not intended as such.

She was a bird coddled in the safety of her nest, even if the nest was tattered and frayed. She still remembered her refusal to accompany the seafarers as they embark on their adventures, remembered how she turned down a chance at a new life and despite her pretenses, how her smile reached not her eyes as she wished them luck on their journeys.

It had taken her forever to finally admit it: she was starving, all those years ago, when she said no.

“I can give you the world; say yes and join me.”

Was it cowardice that made her say no in the past, and if she said yes now, would it be out of foolishness?

If it was security that she wanted, she should have rejected the traveller’s advances ever since their first encounter. For her to have known since the beginning of the traveller’s true nature and to still play along… only an idiot would stick their hands into an inferno and expect it to feel cold. What other outcomes were there to this? Her hunger for danger could only end in disaster, yet her heart was no longer racing, her stomach no longer twisting.

The traveller’s hands still covered her eyes. She knew these were the hands of a murderer, yet the quirk brought back memories not of the bloodied nightmares and mauled corpses, but instead of the time she almost laughed upon realizing that the traveller was trying to be playful. She was reminded of their silly attempts at courting, exchanging gifts for kisses, the joyous memories untainted by gore and horrors. This time though, she noticed how the traveller’s fingers were trembling, the hands covering her eyes but barely doing so as if a touch skin-to-skin would burn her.

Whatever she was feeling now, the traveller was a thousand times more scared.

“Yes,” said the merchant.

She took the traveller’s hands in hers and uncovered her eyes, spinning around to greet the familiar face. Her eyes drank in the view, committing every feature of the traveller’s appearance to memory lest she would fade into thin air again. The eyes the color of seafoam that made her feel like the centre of the world, the hair like kelp that brought her comfort every time she stroked them, the lips that were pale but plump and very kissable- the traveller felt like a fantasy made flesh.

She laughed at the traveller’s bewildered shock.

“Yes, take me with you."


End file.
